


Men Must Work...

by MarnaNightingale



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-18
Updated: 2004-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-27 18:04:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarnaNightingale/pseuds/MarnaNightingale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an earlier time, if James' lover had failed of a tryst, had shown up a week or a month late, he would have been angry. Now, he is only grateful that another stoic wait is ended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Men Must Work...

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in the wonderful [](http://webcrowmancer.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://webcrowmancer.livejournal.com/)**webcrowmancer** 's journal.

In an earlier time, if James' lover had failed of a tryst, had shown up a week or a month late, he would have been angry. Now, he is only grateful that another stoic wait is ended. Jack, too, once would have asked some hard questions. He has learned to wait for the stories to come of their own accord.

After a period of celibacy, James has always liked to begin making love with inexorable, slow movements, peeling away clothes slowly, kissing and inspecting every inch of skin. Once, he did this for the pure pleasure that keen need and longing bring with them once the final landfall is in sight, out of a desire to luxuriate in the sensation for as long as possible. Now, as he kisses and bites, as he strokes and teases, his need is different, and his green eyes are sharp, drinking in the details, memorizing scent and sound and skin.

Jack used to love to count up his scars, to show them off in bed and laugh, and make up tall tales about them. Now, when he comes back to land with a new one, or finds a new one on the body of his beloved, he is silent. James was once the jealous type, silently furious and stiff with his lover for staring too long at another's face or laughing too loudly at another's wit. Now he tells his beloved, _fidelity is coming back_, and means it. Both of them have learned to be cautious, to be gentle at first, to beware of new hurts invisible to the eye. Now they know that things can change, inside and out, for worse, as well as for better. And they never, ever speak to one another of what they have learned.

But when one of them traces his hand, or his tongue, down a fresh, livid, scar, the other rolls silently, softly onto his back, and lets his hands fall to his sides. Knowing what is coming. And the other will lash at the scar with his tongue, and then move on, stroking and biting and licking each mark, each old wound, and then the skin in between, moving over his lover like waves when a storm is building, until neither of them can bear it anymore and their mouths clash and their bodies join and they make love as if they knew it were the last time.

Finally, when neither can hold back any more, they speak, crying out into each other's mouths... Mine. Mine. You are mine. Telling themselves, telling each other, telling the universe, telling the gods. Beseeching the gods.

And they both know that in coming as far as they have, in coming together at all, they have already had as much fortune, as much mercy, as much luck, as any two men have any right to expect.


End file.
